The question is whether American armed forces veterans who do not have citizenship are getting the expedited citizenship they were promised.
We learned about this problem while canvassing for Obama in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I wrote an email to Brandon Friedman and got no reply (this was right before the election and I'm sure he was getting 1000s of emails so my feelings are not hurt) and I'm not sure what to do next -- so I'm turning this over to the Daily Kos community for suggestions.
It happened when my husband, college daughter and I were canvassing in Ann Arbor, about 3 weeks before the election. We were knocking on doors in a garden-apartment community when someone from the apartment management office came to tell us (very politely) that we had to leave. He had gotten a complaint from one of the residents and there was a strict no-soliciting rule. While we were amicably discussing this, a handsome young man who had been sitting outside reading overheard our conversation and came over to ask for our campaign literature.
The management rep (who made it clear he was on our side in the election), gratefully left us with this welcoming resident of their community.
Of course we started talking with this nice young man. He said his wife was an Obama supporter and he wanted the literature for her, but he himself was more of a 3rd party guy. But he then told us that although he's a veteran, he couldn't vote because he's not a citizen. He's originally from Russia and his parents didn't become citizens until after he had already turned 18 -- so he couldn't automatically become a citizen based on their status. Now he's back from Iraq, in school and awaiting his promised expedited citizenship. And waiting. And waiting. He's been waiting for 3 years,
I'm not a veteran nor is any close family member. But I'm very aware of the shameful way our soldiers have been treated in the last 5 years including multiple tours of duty with insufficient time off in-between, stop loss rules, terrible conditions when they return, falsification of diagnoses to allow the army to either throw the soldiers back into the war or discharge them without benefits, neglectful and inadequate treatment. But this issue, in effect a wrongful denial of citizenship, was a new one to me.
The young man told us that he was far from the only veteran he knew who was experiencing this. He said he's heard there are hundreds of similar cases and some problem with backlog (my guess is that it's part of the purposeful government incompetence of the Bush administration). He's made calls to no avail.
I have heard nothing about this problem, and I'm a news junkie. But I'm wondering if other people have heard about this and whether there is something we can do. Unfortunately, we didn't get his email (although we might be able to track him through the friendly management rep guy).
Here we have this guy who put his life on the line for our country (yes, the war was a mistake, but that's not his fault), but he couldn't vote in one of the most important elections in our history. There's something very wrong with that.